Brain of a Blogger
As blogging skyrockets in popularity, we should be asked:
Is blogging is good for the brain? Here two physician-learning
specialists offer their view.
(PRWEB) March 2, 2005 -- During the past five years, blogging
has exploded from virtual non-existence into an important
and influential sociocultural force. Recent survey data indicate
that there are now nearly 10 million bloggers, 90% of whom
are between the ages of 13 and 29 years old.
This incredible upsurge in activity has caused us to wonder:
What effect is all this blogging having on the brains of bloggers?
Why ask this question? The primary reason can be found in
one of the central tenets of modern neuroscience: "The
neurons that fire together, wire together."
What this basically means is that our mental activities actually
cause changes in the structures of our brains--not only what
we think, but how we think as well. Given such activity-directed
change, it always makes sense to ask whenever large numbers
of people start using their brains in new and different ways,
what effects these new activities are likely to have on brain
structure and function.
Blogging, which only seems to be accelerating in popularity,
is a prime candidate for such investigation. After surveying
the general range of materials that the blogosphere has to
offer, we believe the following basic largely supportive conclusions
are warranted:
1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical
thinking.
First, there are blogs and there are...well, blogs. The best
of blogs are rich in ideas and promote active exchange and
critique. Rather than creating closed communities of like-minded
troglodytes, these best blogs foster conversation, interactions
with other blogs and other information sources, and invite
feedback from their readers.
Posts can form "threads" or links to other Web
materials where readers can examine primary source material
or articles that offer competing ideas and views. Blogs that
follow this format are far from simple substitutes for television
or video games. In fact, they are an ideal format for promoting
critical and analytical thinking.
Because blogs are text-based, bloggers must write and visitors
must read (rather than passively view) the postings. In research
comparing newspaper and television news, public policy experts
have previously found that consumers are far more likely to
question what they read than what they see in pictures or
on TV.
There are several likely reasons for this: First, text can
be assimilated in a self-paced fashion, allowing time for
analysis and reflection. Second, words must -- by their very
nature -- be analyzed, organized, and interpreted before they
can be understood, providing more time for critical reflection.
In contrast, pictures and music have more direct access to
brain areas dealing with emotion and motivation, thereby potentially
avoiding or even subverting reason and reflection. Third,
pictures and music not only have the potential to alter our
interpretations of the words we hear, but can actually alter
our perceptions of the words we believe we have heard.
Because our perceptions are formed by combining our sensory
input with contextual cues from other inputs or stored memories,
strongly arousing visual or sound images have a profound ability
to alter the words we hear. This is the reason behind Reagan
aide Michael Deaver's famous statement to CBS's Lesley Stahl
that he didn't mind what CBS said about Reagan on TV, so long
as any voiceovers were accompanied by pictures of the President
standing in front of a flag. Blogs, with their text-based
format, tend to avoid the more manipulative aspects of visually-embedded
media.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative,
intuitive, and associational thinking.
To remain popular with readers, blogs must be updated frequently.
This constant demand for output promotes a kind of spontaneity
and 'raw thinking '-- the fleeting associations and the occasional
outlandish ideas -- seldom found in more formal media. (Fortunately,
the permanence and easily searchable nature of archived posts
helps maintain some sense of decorum.)
Blogging technology itself fosters this kind of spontaneity,
since blogging updates can be posted with just a few clicks
whenever a new thought or interesting Internet tidbit is found.
Blogging is ideally suited to follow the plan for promoting
creativity advocated by pioneering molecular biologist Max
Delbruck. Delbruck's "Principle of Limited Sloppiness"
states we should be sloppy enough so that unexpected things
can happen, but not so sloppy that we can't find out that
it did.
Raw, spontaneous, associational thinking has also been advocated
by many creativity experts, including the brilliant mathematician
Henri Poincare who recommended writing without much thought
at times "to awaken some association of ideas."
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
Recent international surveys have shown that students in
the United States have fallen far behind most of their first
world peers in problem solving and critical thinking. This
fall has coincided with a shameful decline in school-based
instruction in critical analysis, rhetoric, and persuasive
writing.
However because professionals like attorneys, philosophers,
and academicians run many excellent blogs, we all can benefit
from their intellectual rigor, and their use of analogical
thinking when communicating to the common world of the blogosphere.
Back-and-forth blog-based exchanges between experts also
provide a unique opportunity for young thinkers to witness
and evaluate arguments from analogy on an ongoing basis, and
to develop their own abilities to think analogically.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing
access and exposure to quality information.
Because blogs link many facts and arguments in branching
"threads" and webs, and append primary source materials
and reference works, they foster deeper understanding and
exposure to quality information. In turn these sources can
seed other creative projects.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection
and social interaction.
Research using the Lemelson-MIT Invention index found that
invention is best fostered in solitude (66%); yet other research
has shown the beneficial effects of brainstorming with a community
of intellectual peers.
So blogging may combine the best of "working by yourself"
and "working with other people." Bloggers have solitary
time to plan their posts, but they can also receive rapid
feedback on their ideas. The responses may open up entirely
new avenues of thought as posts circulate and garner comments.
In conclusion, it looks as if blogging will be very good
for our brains. It holds enormous potential in education,
and it could take societal communication and creative exchange
onto a whole new level.
Fernette Eide M.D. and Brock Eide M.D. M.A.
Eide Neurolearning Blog: http://www.eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com
Eide Neurolearning Clinic: http://www.neurolearning.com
Phone: 425-742-2218 Fax: 425-742-8115
The Eides' book on Neurolearning (Hyperion Books) is coming
Spring 2006.
